Praying in the Kingdom

Well, good morning, church. My name is Mike Laramee. If you have not met me, I'm sure most of you have, but there are some that might not have met me. I am not Pastor Gary. Pastor Gary is actually at a family reunion this weekend.

So it is my honor and privilege to bring you the Word this morning. And I'm part of the preaching team. I'm also the director of discipleship, which means I do all the small group stuff and life on life, discipleship, stuff like that. So if you're really interested in that, come see me. I'd love to talk to you about that.

Now, I'd like to greet you on this Memorial Day. Notice I don't say Happy Memorial Day because Memorial Day was set aside as a remembrance for all of those men and women in uniform that gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. And so it is a day of memorial, but it has become more of a day of thankfulness and gratefulness for those who've given the ultimate sacrifice, including friends of mine who have gone on. And so I do set that aside, and I do wish the best for you on Memorial Day weekend. And as we think about being thankful, I would like to quickly also mention something else.

And you might see this in the lobby. There's a table for Compassion International out there. And that's an opportunity for us to pass on that thankfulness. It's a way to sponsor a child who is in a country far from here who could use the blessings that we have. And let me just share a quick anecdote about compassion.

Several years ago, I was at a concert and my wife was actually at home, and there was a compassion, and they were making a push for compassion just like this. And I really felt the stirring in my heart that I need to sponsor a couple children. Now, we've done World Vision, and we had another Compassion child at the time. But at the time I figured, you know, I've got some more margin. Let me sponsor a couple more kids.

And we were going to do this in the name of my wife and I. And so we're going to get two. And so I went back to the table and I grabbed two cards and I brought those two cards home. And I was amazed to find that since we were going to sponsor these two in form of my wife and I, that both of the kids birthdays are written on the card. And their birthdays were both the 11th of November, which is my wife and I's anniversary.

And I thought, that can't be a coincidence. Okay, so please stop by the table and pass on your thankfulness to those who need it. Now we're continuing our sermon series today entitled Kingdom Living. It's an expositional study of Jesus Christ's Sermon on the Mount that's found in Matthew 5, 7. And we're in stop nine of our expositional service.

And many people have described this, and you've heard this from the stage, that the Sermon on the Mount was the greatest sermon preached by the greatest preacher who'd ever lived. And today we're going to pick up on that section that we deviated around last week because we, you know, we actually took out this section so that we could speak about it specifically this week. So we talked about the stuff before and after last week. And so now we're going to deal with the Lord's practical teaching on prayer that he gives us in the Lord's Prayer. Now, prayer is a topic that most of us have had to wrestle with in some capacity.

As someone who has discipled people, many of you have done the same thing. If you've discipled others or you have been discipled yourself, you know that prayer is one of the hardest fought disciplines in the Christian's life. There's a reason for this. I think there's a reason for this because if God's people are intimately fellowshipping with their Heavenly Father, then they become a powerful force for good and for the gospel in this life. See, every evil adversary, whether human or supernatural, would love to oppose this.

They had to love to oppose this good force, this good force for the gospel. So it's no surprise that prayer can be a very hard fought discipline. Are you fighting a battle in your prayer life? Is it hard to make time to pray? Is it hard to know how to pray?

Maybe you have a struggle with quieting your mind and actually being able to listen to the Lord. Is it hard to talk to God? What are you battling in your prayer life? See, every one of us wages war with evil when we pray. So don't be surprised when there's a fight for your prayer life, friend.

Be assured that the God who speaks to you in secret has overcome the world. The tomb is empty. He has overcome. So if there are a hundred obstacles to you and to your prayer life, keep at it because it's worth it. It is absolutely worth it to be in the presence of the King.

So Jesus, with the crowds on the mountainside, all these people watching the Sermon on the Mount, began to remove some of those obstacles and guide them to a more intimate and purposeful fellowship with the Father in our prayer life. And Jesus guides us through his word today as well. In Matthew, chapter six, as Jesus continues his sermon, he taught the crowd how to pray as citizens of God's kingdom. See, we, as citizens of God's kingdom today, we can pray that way as well. See?

How are we going to do that as citizens? How are we going to pray to the kingdom? Well, the text is going to give us three ways to pray as kingdom citizens in Matthew, chapter six. And if you have your Bibles, turn with me to chapter six of Matthew starting in verse seven. And if you want to cheat, you can look up on the.

On the screen as well. I'm okay with that. So Matthew, chapter six, starting in verse seven. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard. For their many words do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

Pray then like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be youe name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Now, may God bless the reading of His Word. Amen. We're looking for three ways to pray as citizens in God's kingdom.

Here's the first one. Pray with thoughtfulness. Pray with thoughtfulness. Now, notice in verse seven, one of the first things that Jesus does is he starts with a negative command. This is hard to preach.

Sometimes he says, don't be like them. Okay, so if I'm not going to be like them, I need to do something in the opposite direction. So don't be like them. He's teaching us that the word world tends to pray with lots of empty words that actually don't move God at all, right? Instead, what Jesus is seeking is a heartfelt, thoughtful, meaningful prayer.

And if you're new, what is prayer? Prayer is just speaking to God. Okay? We can speak audibly. We can speak very quietly.

You can think in your mind because God can read your thoughts, right? You can. You can do it with other people. You can do it in public. You can do it in private.

Prayer is merely communicating with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Now, one thing I want to point out. Most of you know that I'm Kind of a history kind of dude. I love to delve deep into what happened back in the day and in the first century. The audience that Jesus is speaking to, this is mostly a Jewish audience.

And in the first century Jewish mind, they had a very different, different idea of prayer than we might have today. Their prayer was very structured, and most of their prayers were memorized and said from memory by rote. That was the norm. See, they were expected to pray the Shema a couple times a day. That's Deuteronomy 6.

4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind every morning and every evening. But it didn't end there. Okay? They would pray before every meal, right?

And not only did they pray before every meal, but the prayer changed based upon what you were eating. So and it had to be memorized. And you had. If you had this thing, then you prayed this prayer. If you had this thing, you prayed that prayer.

And the Jewish scholars at the time, you know, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they had determined, they looked through and they decided that if you had something the size of an olive, you needed to say one of these prayers. So again, very regimented, very memorized, but it didn't end there. Okay. There were particular prayers that were called for for occasions such as perhaps you approached the site of an ancient miracle, there was a prayer that you had to say. Then what if you had.

There was an earthquake, which was very common in ancient Israel. There was a prayer for that. You saw a shooting star, there was a prayer for that. Okay, you heard thunder or you saw lightning, there were prayers for those things. One prayer was for receiving good news and another prayer was for receiving bad news.

Again, a recited prayer. If you walked into a town, there were two prayers there that you had to say, and when you left that town, there were two more. You might think that's a lot, but there's even more. But wait, there's more. The observant Jew was required to pray the tefillah, which is 8, 18 benedictions, the tefillah.

And this was a series of memorized prayers that started with adoration for the Father and went through a whole manner of different things and would end with a prayer for the dispersed tribes of Israel throughout the world. 18 different things. This had to be done three times a day at prescribed times during the day. So you see this first century Jewish audience as they're listening to Jesus Christ sermon on the Mount when he begins to speak about prayer. They thought they knew what prayer was all about.

And Jesus is going to change this a little bit. See, think about how we do today. Today we struggle just to pray in the first place, right? Sometimes we pray or we struggle to pray over our meals. We don't want to pray in a restaurant.

Somebody might think we're a little odd, okay? And I don't want to pray out loud because I'm not as good as that person or I don't say things like they do. You know, even those people that I have spoken to that I would consider have a healthy prayer life, most of them will say, oh man, I really struggle in this area and I could use some help. We tend to have a very different idea of what prayer looks like today than that first century audience. You see, one of the things that that first century audience was doing, Jesus calls them out here in verse seven is they heap up empty phrases.

This is a fun Greek word. We had fun with this this week called barelageo.

This is a combination of two Greek words, Batus, which was a proper name, and then logos or logeo. You know the word, the words of Batus, Batus. They have two different people. They think he might have been. There was a king of Cyrene whose name was Batus.

But there was also this poet that was famous in the first century. Both of these men were famous for being verbose. They like to talk a lot. They like to hear themselves talk. And I don't know why anybody would pay this poet to listen to just words and words and words, but that's what they did, okay?

And so bottle of was kind of this idea of just babbling, right? Just, just hearing themselves talk, okay? And that's what Jesus is calling these people out. He says, no, no, no, no. That's what's happening here.

You guys are doing this battle of Gael stuff. You guys are just talking to hear words. And he says that's what the Gentiles do. And he's not just pointing out these gentiles as non Jews, but these were pagans. These were heathens.

These people were trying to pray to their heathen gods with many, many words. And we see this, there's a good example of this in the Old Testament. How many of you all remember that? The battle of the prophets on Mount Carmel with Elijah and the prophets of Baal. You've got the single prophet of God Elijah against 500 prophets of Baal.

And Elijah says, hey, I tell you what, I'll do one bull you guys do the other bull and you guys have all morning to call upon Baal. What happens? Right? First Kings 18:26, it says, and they took the bull that was given them. These are the prophets of baal.

And they prepared it and called upon the name of BAAL from morning until noon, saying, o baal, answer us. But there was no voice and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made. If you read that story a little bit more, you know that they would cut themselves and they would repeat, BAAL answered us over and over and over again, and nothing happened. If you read it really carefully, you'll see Elijah actually pokes at them a little bit.

He says, why don't you call louder? Maybe he doesn't hear you. You know, maybe he's resting. And if you read it really carefully, it actually says, maybe he's going to the restroom. You know, he's relieving himself in the cool of the day.

So he's poking at. He's poking at them because he knows that these prophets of BAAL are just shouting these words into the air, doing nothing. Jesus says in verse eight, don't be like them. Don't do that. Okay?

Because in verse 8 it says, Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Romans 8, 26, 27 says, likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is in the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. See, God knows what you need before you even bring it up.

So you don't need to bring it up and bring it up and bring it up and over and over. Or practice some of that Eastern mantra kind of things where you're just saying words into the air. That's what Jesus is saying. No, don't do that. Let's think thoughtfully.

You're speaking to a person, you're speaking to the Father. You wouldn't like it if somebody just talked to you and just said words over and over and over again. There'd be no message, right? So talk to the Father thoughtfully, meaningfully. See, Jesus may be touching on a passage from Ecclesiastes, as Solomon writes this, where our hearts can sometimes be irreverent towards God and our prayers can lack the thoughtfulness that our Creator deserves.

Like I said, you wouldn't talk to a good friend of yours or your husband. Or wife. With just empty words, you actually are trying to convey a meaning. So look at Ecclesiastes 5, 2, 3. Solomon writes, Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God.

For God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few. For a dream comes with much busyness and a fool's voice with many words. So it's pretty consistent. Let's not just babble, let's be meaningful.

But then you would ask, well, why do we pray? Why then do we pray? Let's remember that prayer is our need and not his. See, God exists in perfect communion. Father, Son and Spirit, they already have perfect communion.

He does not need to hear us, we need to hear from Him. Look at what John Calvin says, that the theologian John Calvin says, but if God knows what things we have need of before we ask him, where lies the advantage of prayer? Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he were reluctant. You catch that? We're not telling God, hey, by the way, here's this thing going on that you've not heard about, or hey, why don't you do your job?

God, he finishes, he says, on the contrary, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promises, that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom. Our job to pray is not to inform God, but to be in the presence of God. That is the purpose behind prayer. That is why we need to be thoughtful and meaningful when we are conversing with our Father, Adam Clark, who was an 18th century theologian as well. He said, this prayer is not designed to inform God, but to give man a sight of his misery, to humble his heart, to excite his desire to inflame his faith, to animate his hope, to raise his soul from earth to heaven.

So all of these people are saying prayer is not about what God needs, it's about what you need. You need to pray. We can learn a lot about prayer by watching young children who has a daddy that loves them, right? Young children don't come up to their father and say, oh dear, most glorious Father, might I beseech thee to grant me a delicious vessel of frozen chocolate treats. No, they don't say that.

They say, dad, dad, can we have ice cream? And I go, yes, because I always want ice cream. So yes, the answer is yes, do you struggle to pray. It's one of the most common things we hear, man. I don't know what to say or I can't pray like those people, man.

They got the right hat on and everything. They obviously know how to pray. No, see, God wants to engage with you. He wants to talk to one of his kids. We're one of those kids that want ice cream.

And God wants to give you ice cream. He wants to hear from you. Start the conversation with him. See, the first step at being better at praying is to actually do it. Okay?

Actually do it. Don't tell me, man. I have a hard time praying. Well, when's the last time you prayed? Yeah, exactly.

So do it. Okay? Just start, you know, at a stoplight, you know, pray. Please watch the stoplight, though. That annoys me.

You know, right when shopping at the store, working in the yard, you know, as we grow in prayer, you will find that daily quiet time, that daily time with the Lord gets easier and easier. So we want to pray with thoughtfulness, right? But the next way we can pray as Kingdom citizens is to pray with a purpose. Pray with purpose. Now, here we're going to talk through Jesus.

Model prayer, the one that we commonly call the Lord's Prayer. Starting in verse nine, Jesus then tells the crowd how to pray. He says, pray then like this. Notice he doesn't say pray using these exact words and don't skip any. Right?

He says, pray then like this. It's a model prayer. You can certainly use the words of the Lord and pray it back to him. Praying back. Scripture is a good thing, okay?

But this is not the only way to prayer. But this is a model. Let's look at some of the things that Jesus points out. First, verse nine, Father in heaven. Who are we addressing?

We're praying to the Father. Where is he? He's in heaven, right? He's at the seat of all things eternal, which is consummately perfect. This is where God dwells.

This is in the highest heaven. Let's begin our prayer. Knowing who it is that we're speaking to, who you're speaking to in the first place, where is he positionally compared to us? Right? Let's think about who it is that we're raising these prayers to.

1 Kings 8 kind of points this out, but will indeed dwell on the earth. Behold heaven. And the highest heaven cannot contain you. How much less this house that I have built. Let's recognize that we're speaking to the King of heaven.

And the very next thing Jesus gives us to do to Say is to hallowed be your name. He says, hallowed be your name. Make your name holy. Let's revere, reverence, the name of God. Let's realize that we are talking to the King of kings and the Lord of lords, that he is holy, he is sanctified, he is the fountain of all holiness.

And that's who we get to talk to. Now, there's a little bit of a balancing act here to be done between reverence for the Lord and intimacy with Him. Okay. I've seen some Christian circles sometimes where Jesus refers to the Father as Abba. And Abba in ancient Aramaic and in ancient Hebrew was a familiar name for Father.

And some people have translated it as Daddy. I'm a little uncomfortable with approaching the Father and calling him Daddy. And some people, that may be a good thing. But you know what? A better translation of Abba is probably Dearest Father.

Dearest Father. Why? Because there's still intimacy there. But you need to recognize who it is that you're speaking to. Okay.

You're still speaking to the King of Kings. He's still intimate. See, God the Father is still the King of the universe, creator of all and almighty God sitting on a throne, but he's also the personal Father who is loving, approachable, and attentive. Let's remember who we're talking to. What does Jesus ask us to do as we approach that Father?

See, the first thing that he wants us to do is provide adoration and recognize who God is. The next thing He. He says is your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Where is God's kingdom?

Wherever Jesus reigns. Right in you. In you, in this place, in your house, in your place of work, in your car. That's where the kingdom of God is, right? Your kingdom come.

But the kicker here is that we want his kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, as completely, as perfectly, as immediately as it's done in heaven. We're praying that his will be done. Okay, so we pray in this manner then, to figure out what God's will is for our life and for the life of the church, for the life around us. Right?

We're praying to figure out what his will is. And we're also praying to be used by the Father. Use me to fulfill your will. Use me to. To bring your kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.

Verse 11. Jesus says, Give us this day our daily bread. This is the part that we're really good at. Right. We're really good at asking God.

Hey, can you help me with this? Or can I have that? Can I have ice cream? Right? We're great at that, man.

Hey, Father man, I've got this health concern. Would you help me with this? Or, hey, I got this future job thing. Or, hey, who am I going to marry? Where am I going to go to college?

All that kind of stuff. We're great at asking God questions like that or asking for things. Right? But notice that Jesus gets to that third. Right?

We generally start there. Okay. Oh, yeah, God, you're great. Please give me all this stuff. You know, we're pretty good at that usually.

So Jesus is not saying not to ask for that stuff, but just recognize that that's one of the priorities, one of the things that we pray about. He's going to get harder. Okay. Verse 13, lead us not into temptation. Well, what's temptation?

Hmm. Well, temptation is anything that would lead us astray, Right? It could be something that comes internally, or it could be something that's external, something that might be a test of my character, it might be a test of my faith, might be a test of my holiness, something that troubles me. Right? And he's saying, lead us not into temptation.

Well, that's weird. Why would he say that? Look at what James 1:James says, the brother of Jesus in James 1:13, he says, Let no one say, when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one. So what is it that Jesus means here when he says, lead us not into temptation? Is it like, I'm following him and God's kind of like, hey, here's this thing that you like, you know?

Psych. No, he's not doing that. I think what Jesus is saying is, as we continue with that intimate prayer life, as we are getting to know the Father more and more, we're holding onto him so much that I'm looking up and I'm not looking at that thing that tempts me, right? Lead us not into temptation. In other words, lead me, Lord.

And I won't see this other stuff now. It might still be there, but you know what? I found something to be very true. It's very hard to be tempted when you're praying. Very hard to be tempted when you're praying.

So that's a pretty good alternative, right? When you start seeing that thing and it's different for many of us, that one thing that tempts us, that would be a good time to talk with your father, Right? Let's spend some time in prayer right now and figure out what God has got for me other than this thing that I don't want to be led to. And then it says, deliver us from evil in verse 13. Deliver us from evil.

Right? And actually in the Greek, the article is there. It actually says, deliver us from the evil. So your translation may say, deliver us from evil. It may say, deliver us from the evil one.

Okay, and that's an interesting. We call that a textual variant. It's very small. It doesn't substantially change the meaning of the passage. But I think there's a shade of meaning here that we miss when we look at this.

Okay? Because if we're just merely thinking, deliver us from the evil one, many of us are thinking Satan, right? Well, guess what? Satan probably doesn't have time to bother with you. He's one being right now.

It is true we wage against powers and principalities and those. Those forces, you know, there are demonic forces out there. There's evil in the world. That's human as well, right? So there's evil out in the world.

Okay? There's evil, absolutely. But Satan is probably not tempting you. He's probably got somebody else in mind. That's probably a bigger fish to fry, right, that he's chasing after.

So it may not be the evil one, but you know what I think it really means? There's an evil that each one of us tends towards. And it might be different. It might be very similar to this temptation. There might be some evil that is in your life or that you kind of tend to walk towards.

And I think that's what Jesus is getting at. Deliver us from the evil. I think it's the evil that so easily entraps me. Deliver us from the evil. See, again, it's that same idea.

The closer I walk with the Lord, the closer I'm in fellowship with him, the less I want that evil that so easily ensnares me. Deliver us from the evil.

We are to purposefully pray as children of God. Romans 8:15 says, for you did not receive a spirit of slavery that returns you to fear, but you receive the spirit of adoption to sonship. By whom we cry. Abba. Father, all of you who call Jesus Christ as Lord are so sons.

It doesn't matter if you're men or women. You are in that first position of priority. You've been adopted into the family. You have that position. So we can purposefully pray to the Lord because of that.

And we should pray for the kingdom to Come for the advancement of the gospel. This is what we've been after for the last six months as we've been talking about its time and as we brought this process to bear. Mark 1:14 and 15 reminds you that Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. That is what we should be all about.

As we think about temptation as well. First Corinthians is very instructive in that we should pray for God's protection and deliverance. And it says in 1 Corinthians, As Paul writes, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may not be able to.

That you may be able to endure it. Excuse me. So, yes, temptation is real, okay? But that is not what God. God's not in the temptation business business.

He's in the prayer business. Can I ask you some questions right now? Let's do a comprehension check. You don't have to answer these out loud, but I want you to think about some of these things that you might find very concerning about this prayer thing so far. If I don't pray for God's kingdom to come, will it not come already?

Will his will not be done if I don't pray for it? If I don't pray for my daily bread, am I going to starve?

Will he lead me into temptation? If I don't ask him not to do that, will he not deliver me from evil? Isn't God's kingdom going to come no matter what I pray? And his will is going to be done no matter what I think about? See, Daniel 7:27 says, his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.

So God's kingdom is coming whether we pray for it or not. Indeed, that is the purpose of my prayer. It's for my heart to get in line with his. It's for my heart to be like God's heart, for my will to be subordinated to his will, my thoughts to be like his thoughts. That's what prayer is all about.

God's doing his business. God is moving his kingdom. He's doing it all around us. Let's get on board, y' all. This is what we're doing.

What is the purpose behind your prayers? Is it self or is it God? Is it all about? Please help. Please Help.

Please help. Can I have this? Can I have this? Can I have this? Again, those are good prayers, but that's not the only purpose, right?

Jesus makes room for praying for that kind of stuff. But again, that's not the only one. The purpose is alignment with the Father. Remember, we could say that Lord's Prayer in slightly different words if we said it this way. You are holy.

Your kingdom come, your will be done. You give the bread that you think I need, right? You forgive and make me a forgiver like you. You lead me. You deliver me.

See, prayer is about him. Prayer is all about him. So we want to pray with purpose. Here's the third way. Pray with forgiveness, Pray with forgiveness.

We're in verse 12, and then 14 and 15 here as we talk about forgiveness. And let's talk about what that forgiving is, right? Forgiveness, basically, if I were to put it in other words, is to let it go, right? Is to let it go and not let that thing continue to eat me up. See, we have already been forgiven.

So as Christians, we should understand what forgiveness really is. In First John 1, it says that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. See, God has already forgiven us. So we understand.

We should understand what it means to be forgiven. So Jesus then takes that and says, forgive us our debts. Notice, Jesus doesn't say, forgive our sins. He says, forgive our debts. Almost like an accounting term.

Okay, I had a couple accountants in the first service, and I was struggling with this concept. Now I took accounting. I should know this, but I've forgotten it. But you know, every time we sin, it's a debt, right? It goes on the ledger.

Boop. There's a sin, there's a sin, there's a sin. But we know. Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's past sins.

That's today's sins. That's tomorrow's sins, right? Those sins keep. They show up on the ledger, right? Liabilities.

Bing, bing, bing, bing. Remember, Pastor Gary likes to say, keep short accounts with God. Confess our sins. As First John says, confess our sins and wipe that clean. Now, your sins have already been paid for, but let's deal with those sins, because we understand that God forgives us, and we see that.

But now Jesus turns that in verse 12, forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors. Uh. Oh, that just got hard, right? It's easy for us to ask for forgiveness, right? Hey, Jesus, here's my list.

You know, you said you'd pay for it. Cool. And he says, wait, wait a minute. You need to forgive your debtors too. Ooh, that just got a lot harder.

See, he pairs these things together. See, those of us who've received forgiveness should be experts at forgiving. We should be good at that. Now, let me share something with you. Nowhere in the Bible does it say forgive and forget.

It doesn't say that. Forgive and forget. That's not a thing. That's something I learned as a kid. Forgive and forget, right?

No. What does Christian forgiveness look like then? Now, there's a lot of ways we could talk about this. And I'm just going to leave you with this one way here. According to the association of Certified Biblical Counselors, forgiveness is a series of four promises.

There's four promises. Here's the first one. It's a promise not to dwell on the incident mentally. A promise not to dwell on that incident mentally. Now, that does not mean, okay, if someone sins against you, okay.

Doesn't mean that you can't process that it's going to hurt. You need to acknowledge the fact that it hurts. You're not going to minimize it and say, oh, no, it was nothing. You still have to go through a process of grieving through that sin, okay? But you don't want to go over and over and continue to dwell on it and have it completely dominate who you are.

The second promise is a promise not to bring up that sin again and use it against that other person. You promise not to bring it up and use it against that other person. Now let me tell you a quick story to illustrate this, okay? A long, long time ago, back when I was just engaged and not been married forever, my fiance, my now wife came to visit me. I was in Northern California at the time doing training in the Air Force, and she came to visit me.

My roommate had a ruse. He said, hey, we got to go to the airport and pick up a friend of mine. Which was true. But he didn't say who it was. Right?

And so we drove to the airport and out walks my wife. Fiance, sorry at the time. And I was confused. I was looking for his friend. I'm like, what are you doing here?

Well, I'm glad to see you, but what are you doing here? And I was still so kind of taken out of sorts that we started walking out of the airport and I never grabbed her bag, which is what I did every time. And we walked out and she was lugging her bag all the way to my car. You know, well, 10 years later, we're in a fight, okay? Because married people fight.

And shocker for you guys in the front, it does happen, right? We were in a fight. And she said, and there was that time that I came to the airport and you didn't grab my bag. Right? So, yeah, she was using that against me.

And yes, I am also aware of the irony of me now saying the same thing in history and talking about the same thing. So I get that. But it's a promise not to use it again against the other person. Here's the third promise. A promise not to talk to others about the sin.

Okay? Now, a promise not to talk to others about the sin. Now, this can be difficult because there's a line between gossip and seeking godly counsel. Okay? It is okay for you to seek godly counsel.

You've been hurt, you've been sinned against. You need to talk to someone. You need to process it. How do I deal with this person? How can I move beyond this?

That's legit. As opposed to, do you know what this person did to me? That's gossip. That's not what we're trying to do. So it's a promise not to talk to others about that.

Here's the fourth one. A promise not to let the incident hinder your relationship with a sinner. It's a promise not to let that relationship be hindered. Okay? So what that means is I'm going to let it go.

I need to process it and let it go. I need to forgive that person. Notice that doesn't mean that there's reconciliation necessarily, but I'm gonna let it go. Cause what happens with unresolved forgiveness, unresolved forgiveness can lead to a root of bitterness. And bitterness can interfere with our prayer life.

And that, I think, is what Jesus is getting at. Okay? You need to forgive your debtors because you've already been forgiven. Forgive our trespasses, as our Heavenly Father neither will forgive them. Look at verses 14 and 15.

This is the most difficult part of this passage, right? It says that our Heavenly Father will not forgive us unless we have forgiven. That is tough teaching right there. What does that mean? Well, J.I.

packer has a really good book on prayer, and he said this. He said, the Lord's Prayer is the family prayer in which God's adopted children address their Father. And though their daily failures do not overthrow their justification, things will not be right between Them and their father, till they've said, I'm sorry and asked him to overlook the ways they've let him down. So you can see that when you have unresolved forgiveness in your life, your prayer life may be bouncing off the ceiling. Have you ever felt that?

You feel like, man, these prayers are just not effective. Maybe there's some unresolved forgiveness in your life. Maybe there's something that you're just holding onto and it's creating a root of bitterness inside. And I know that this is something that affects us all. It happens.

We need to deal with that. See, if you look at your children, those of you who have kids, your children may offend you, they may do something against you, but they don't stop being your kids. Right? You may break fellowship with them for a time, but the objective is to forgive and to move on and to always be family. We as Christians are called to be bountiful in forgiveness.

We're supposed to have a deep well of forgiveness from Christ for others. Matthew 18:21 says this famous story. Remember, Peter came up to him and said, lord, how often will my brother sin against me? And I forgive him as many as seven times. And Jesus said to him, I did not say to you seven times, but 70 times seven.

Is Jesus saying, keep an exact count. When you hit 490, you're done? No, he's basically saying, keep on going. You have an unlimited well of forgiveness. Mark 11:25.

Jesus links this very clearly that forgiveness and prayer are connected. It says, whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your father, who is also in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. You have unresolved forgiveness, and you might have some problems in your prayer life. See, we forgive every time because we have been forgiven from everything. Ephesians 4:32 says, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

We as Christians should be forgiven forgivers go. And since we know what forgiveness looks like, we should be forgiving. CS Lewis put it this way. He said, to be a Christian means to forgive the inexpensive inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in us. So you may have noticed something interesting.

I used to plant a garden. I had a garden in my house. And when my wife and I first moved to North Carolina, way back when, we lived in a little apartment in Goldsboro, right off Caswell. It's still there. It's kind of dumpy now, but, you know, it's been a long time the back porch had a little dirt area.

It was probably two by eight. And I was thinking, you know what? I'm gonna have couple a garden two by eight, little plot of dirt. So we got some tomato plants and some cucumbers. And if you ever planted cucumbers, you know, they run.

So I put them up the fence, and they crawled up the fence and had these gargantuan cucumbers and, you know, tomatoes grew. And I was pretty happy about that. You know, there's one thing I noticed, though. I never saw broccoli grow out of a tomato plant, right? You plant tomato seeds, you get tomatoes, you plant cucumber seeds, you.

You get cucumbers, okay? Why is it then that we should be shocked by what Jesus is saying here? By his expectation that those who have been forgiven would then forgive? See, Jesus Christ planted that seed of forgiveness in you. Why is bitterness popping out?

Why is anger coming out? Why is revenge or hostility the fruit of that seed that he planted in you? Did you forget to water it? See, a lack of forgiveness does not condemn us to hell. You're not going to lose your salvation by not forgiving, but it does hinder your fellowship with the Father.

See, one of his key attributes is forgiveness. In Jesus Christ, his attributes are planted, cultivated, and produce the fruit in our lives. When we withhold that forgiveness, we reject that fruit that he gave us. We offend Him. See, we have been forgiven for a lifetime of lies and addiction and adultery and lust and murder and all of these things that we couldn't forgive in others.

We reject that fruit so many times when we hold on to that seed of bitterness. Don't reject that fruit, please. God has forgiven you. Forgive it. Cultivate it.

Practice forgiveness. Let that fruit free flow of prayer continue. Let you and your life be a beacon of forgiveness because you know what Jesus paid for to forgive you. Jesus desires for us to have a consistent, intimate and purposeful relationship with each one of us. He's also given us guidance here on how to make this relationship with Him.

See, our Father is not this from us. He's not hiding from us when we pray. But he is deeply engaged and he wants relationship with you. He wants you to pray with thoughtfulness, with purpose, and with forgiveness. So let's pray now to our Father, Heavenly Father, as I approach you and I get to come to you as one of your kids, yes, I want ice cream all the time, too.

But Father, I want to acknowledge just who you are. You're the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and you are great and mighty to be praised. And so Father, I pray for your will to be done in this church, in these people, to go and do great things for Jesus and make him famous here in eastern North Carolina. Father, I also acknowledge that there may be some that are here within the sound of my voice that have never accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior of their life. And friend, if that's you, would you just pray with me right now?

And you don't have to use these words, but pray in your heart along with me. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would forgive me of my sins as you have that infinite well of forgiveness as you paid for my sins on the cross. I pray that you would accept me, Father, that I invite you into my life as Lord and Savior. Forgive me friend, if you prayed something as simple as that you have been forgiven. Jesus forgives you.

It's not me, it's Jesus that forgives you. And the Holy Spirit's working in you. There may be others that have heard the message today and have heard what the Father has got for you, that the Spirit's been working. And maybe you feel convicted about your prayer life. But let me offer encouragement to you, Father.

Come into these, these friends of mine, come into their hearts, come into their lives, make yourself real to them. I pray for their prayer lives that it would be real, that you would be present in their lives. That if there's a root of bitterness or there's undealt with forgiveness, that needs to happen. Father, I pray that you would seek that out and that you would work in their lives. That that, Father, that we would not use meaningless words.

That we would pray with purpose. That we would reenergize our prayer life. And although most of us feel like we will never be great at prayer, Father, I pray that you would help us in this. And I pray this in Jesus name, Amen.

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